Mathematics and Olive Oil

August 20, 2009

In The Night Counter, Fatima is fixated on numbers and it is something that runs through the family for five generations. She thinks about math when’s she’s cooking, too, as any woman who raised 14 kids probably would—how much to make for each one, how much it was costing, and so forth. And how many bottles of olive oil to order at the Middle Eastern market is certainly something necessary to be calculated, much as her ancestors would have wondered each year how much olive oil their crops would yield.

Many people ask me anything in the book is autobiographical, and I can honestly say no, but there is a tendency for OTHER people I’m related to have a thing for math. Me, I was flustered yesterday trying to help my 10-year old nephew with algebra I vaguely recall doing in 8th grade, which was a long time ago for my brain cells. But I had a good time with these math word problems with my seven-year old nephew, perhaps because they involve olive oil and pizza. So if you need any word problems for the weekend, voila.

(And for those of you interested, the photo of olive oil here is of three olive oils from the West Bank, organic oil made under Fair Trade laws to help the Palestinians preserve their centuries old olive groves. One is distributed by American Friends Society (http://www.afsc.org/mepepla/) and the other two are available at Whole Foods, believe it or not. Politics aside, the West Bank produces pretty amazing olive oil because of the nature of its soil and landscape.)

Now back to Fun With Math (which I have adapted from a real math book for kids):
#1 OLIVE OIL

Fatima has a problem. For the last 50 years her neighbor Millie has been a very good friend and has entertained her for many hours with her silly jokes. Millie’s about to celebrate her 70th birthday and Fatima wants to give Millie something that will give her a taste of Lebanon. She has prepared 40 bottles of her village’s olive oil of which she has promised her cousin Dalal half of her final inventory. She would like to give Millie 10 bottles for her birthday. If she wants to keep as many as possible for herself should she first give Dalal half and then give Millie 10 or should she reverse the order in which she gives away the bottles?

#2 PIZZA PARTY
Romano Pizzeria offers the following toppings for a standard large pizza: pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and sausage. In addition to ordering a plain pizza, you can order any number of toppings, even all five (which happens to be the “special”).

How many different kinds of large pizza do you have to choose from?

ANSWER TO #1

Fatima is a pretty frugal woman. She realizes that if she first gives Millie a gift of 10 she will be left with 30 bottles of which she promised half (30/2 = 15) to cousin Dalal.
40 – (10 + 15) = 15 bottles left for Fatima

If she would give the bottles away in the reverse order she would be giving Princess cousin Dalal half of 40 (40/2 = 20) and then giving Millie 10 as a gift.
40 – (20 + 10) = 10 bottles left for Fatima.

By giving Millie the gift of 10 first she is left with 5 extra bottles of her fantastic olive oil for herself

ANSWER TO #2
You can choose from 32 different pizzas. Here are the possible combinations: 1 plain, 5 with one topping, 10 with two toppings, 10 with three toppings, 5 with four toppings, and 1 with five toppings.